Documentation Wiki

Tabs

Tabs are used within the Stage Application to allow you to organise your Widgets into different canvases (we recommend that you read the main Stage article before continuing if you have not already done so). This is useful because you can organise them for different performances or songs.

Tabs can be setup to display at different aspect ratios, which determine the proportion of the width of the canvas to the height of the canvas. This is useful because it allow you to configure different Tabs to fit on different devices, such as desktop monitors, laptops, and handheld devices such as the iPad, iPhone or iPod touch.

Creating Tabs

To create a new Tab, you can click on the '+' button to the right of the tabs, shown above next to the 'Master Volume' tab. Alternatively you can select 'New Tab' from the Edit menu or press 'cmd-T', or using the edit tool by clicking on the canvas background to bring up the Tab menu and selecting 'New Tab'.

You will see a new Tab name appear to the right of the rightmost Tab - click on the name to select it as the active Tab.

Setting Tab Properties

The Tab properties can be accessed through the Tab Properties dialog:

The Tab properties dialog is opened by select 'Tab Properties...' from the Edit menu or pressing 'cmd-N'. Alternatively it can be opened by the edit tool by clicking on the canvas background to bring up the Tab menu and selecting 'Properties...'.

The dialog allows the Tab name and the canvas aspect ratio to be set.

You can adjust the aspect ratio of a Tab for use with different screen sizes and resolutions (e.g. for use on an desktop monitor or an iPhone).
A number of preset aspect ratios are available by the 'Canvas Aspect Ratio' combo-box options:

Select the aspect ratio which suits the screen/device type that you want to use. If the aspect ratio you require is not listed, you can customise the aspect ratio by clicking the 'Use Custom Aspect Ratio' button. You can then enter your desired width:height aspect ratio in the fields shown above, and click 'OK' when ready.

When adjusting the aspect ratio, you may see an area of grey within your Tab - this area is outside of the defined canvas. This is often the case when creating a Tab with an aspect ratio designed for the iPhone/iPod touch using a computer. This behaviour is turned on by default - if you would like to turn off the grey outside canvas behaviour, uncheck 'Grey Outside Canvas' in the View menu or press 'cmd-G'.

Moving Tabs

The order the Tabs appear in the Tab list can be changed by selecting the 'Move Tab Left' and 'Move Tab Right' options from the Tab menu. Selecting 'Move Tab Left' will move the currently selected Tab one place to the left. Selecting 'Move Tab Right' will move the currently selected Tab one place to the right. The leftmost Tab cannot be moved left and the rightmost Tab cannot be moved right, these options are greyed out in these cases.

Closing Tabs

To close a Tab, first select the Tab you would like to close. Note: closing a tab will permanently delete its contents. The Tab can then be closed by selecting 'Close Tab' from the Edit menu or pressing 'cmd-W'. Alternatively it can be closed by the edit tool by clicking on the canvas background to bring up the Tab menu and selecting 'Close Tab'.

On closing a Tab, a dialog is opened to ask you to confirm the action.

Loading and Saving Tab Configurations

Loading and Saving Tabs in the EigenD Setup

Changes made to Tabs in Stage will be immediately stored in EigenD in the currently loaded setup. However, to save those changes, the EigenD setup must be saved. If EigenD is shut down before that, then all the current changes are discarded. Stage Tabs are loaded when EigenD loads the setup.

Importing and Exporting Tabs

Tabs can be imported and exported to allow them to be stored independently from an EigenD setup. This makes it possible to create Tabs in one setup, export them, and then import them into other EigenD setups.

The currently selected Tab is exported by selecting the 'Export Tab...' option from the File menu. All tabs can be exported at once by selecting the 'Export All Tabs...' option from the File menu.

A Tab or set of Tabs can be imported by selecting the 'Import Tabs...' option from the File menu. Imported Tabs are appended to the end of the list of Tabs.

The widgets in an imported Tab will attempt to connect to the agent ports that they were connected to in the setup the Tab was exported from. Any widgets that were connected to agents that do not exist in the setup they are being imported to, will become disconnected. See 'Widget Port Connection Status' in Widgets for more details.